Educational methods are changing. It is most notable at
Community College level. Four years ago only a few teachers were
exploring at Bachelor Degree level and Master's Degree level, the
distance learning concepts, of e-mail contact with professors and
chat rooms using the keyboard. Today in 2000, it is only in the
most old fashioned colleges that professors lack e-mail contact
with students and have a regular daily hourly scheduled chatroom
for students to talk live using audio speakers and microphones
with the professor on homework problems. Low pass rates in some
courses can be attributed to professor overload. One network
professor at a nearby college has over 600 students in various
classes. There is no way, he or she, can attend to the
individual needs of a student. Consequently, many subjects now
being taught, have a high dropout rate and teachers routinely
expect only a 20% graduation from the beginning class, due to
poor student to teacher ratios and time available for personal
attention. Teacher exclusive classroom chatrooms on daily
schedules have in the more advanced colleges replaced the twice
weekly office appointments for one hour, that was the older
traditional method of helping students with their homework
problems. Gone is the long drive to a college and lining up in a
queue, 30 students long, waiting for your 45 second moment of
the professor's time.

With daily chatrooms on-line, a professor now can hold
scheduled assistance for students, even when away at conferences
in far off places and hotels, using a laptop and complimentary
hotel ISP telephone connection.

A recent article in a library association magazine pointed out
that Media Library Centers are failing nationwide in the USA.
Despite the promise of some outstanding examples. The magazine
article is just identifying a problem with the media library
center project, in particular for elementary school systems that
was noted as long as three years ago, in Dade County, Florida.
The problem is not that Media Library Centers don't work.
Results are subject to the type of character in the librarian
hired, but most importantly, as the Dade County school system has
pointed out, the problem lies mostly with the bureaucratic
arrangement. The failure nationwide of media center libraries,
despite such successful examples as at Riverglades Elementary in
Broward County, Florida is probably primarily bureaucratic
organization. I have observed that whereever an elementary
school media center library comes under the control of a School
Principal, for physical assets and budgets, the media center will
fail. The reason is; that when an institutional Director has the
responsibility for many departments, there is a tendency 'to rob
from Peter to pay Paul'. The media center library budget then
becomes something to be raided by school principals for more
urgent unexpected things. Such as a bus tour for the school
band, or uniforms for the gym team. The library is at the bottom
of the totem pole in priorities. I have noted in some
institutions that even libary computers will be removed by
institutional administrator's to places that are deemed to be
more needy, such as the labs, or student services. The solution
of course, is to have budgets and equipment for library media
centers operate outside of the control of the Principal of an
elementary school. School principals who are usually in their
50's or 60's often equate the modern trained media library center
with the type of library they had, when they themselves were
youngsters 30 years ago. Consequently, they often misapply rules
and instructions to librarians, forcing them to teach things
using lesson plans, syllabuses and the format of a regular
teacher. Nothing could be further from the training concepts
taught in the Librarian Master's degree of recent years. You
simply have control of the medial library center in the wrong
hands, when you hand it over to a school principal, or college
services director. Control and budget lines must be separate and
in the hands of the librarian. This is the core failure
nationwide in the USA, of media library elementary school
centers. There is even a problem in larger institutions, such as
community colleges and universities with many branches, in which
one library director is in charge of several libraries and
happens to be over budget in one library and will seek to balance
things, by taking from the budgets of other sub branches to cover
the overspending. This is a common bureaucratic failure. The
hidden agenda of such budget adjustments by senior
administrators, leaves many librarians frustrated with poor
performing ruined branch libraries in disarray and
misunderstandings occur, creating low moral among lower echelon
faculty.

The SACS requirements for accreditation of Colleges is also
obsolete. This is a problem that needs to be addressed. For
instance one requirement by SACS is that a college branch must
have certain things before it can become a separate institution
and grant an Associate degree with accreditation. One infra-
structure requirement is a library collection of 33,000 volumes
in some cases. This year in 2000, a small library with a bank of
internet networked computers for library patrons has the
equivalent through the internet, of access to 3 million books and
information sources. But may only have 500 actual paper books in
the library shelves. Only 10 years ago, only the biggest
Universities could afford a million volume library. Today, any
small branch college library with one librarian and a few
computers can surpass the information sources of that ten year
old statistic. The SACS requirements are obsolete.

Then there is the nature of how we teach a subject itself.
Four years ago, DISTANCE LEARNING was an experimental subject.
Today, a growing number of colleges and universities are applying
significant percentages of their degree requirement courses to
distance learning. They still charge the same fees and do the
same registration routines, though this is often via the
internet. Students now can attend class, solely by computer from
home. The problem of professor work overload is much reduced,
because of the use of the chatroom and e-mail exclusive
registration access password system. Individual attention to
concepts, can be given by teachers, by using the internet with
their students for many more days and hours than is possible with
a live class congested situation in the old fashioned way of
teaching. This should show up in statistical studies of rising
pass rates in difficult classes; such as computer courses. With
more ability to spend time with each student and the rest of the
class watching on a chat room ,HELP homework, question and answer
session; the number of students passing should rise because of
more time available for a professor to handle each student with
the others observing. Estimates show that about 20% of the
colleges in the USA now have effective courses teaching via
distance learning. The rest are catching up rapidly. Only the
most backward colleges are still fighting the changing trends in
how we teach. Usually, such colleges are dominated by senior
bureaucrat administrators with long years of service, mental
blocks against technology and computers in particular. To change
these hold backs, a variety of things are being tried. Golden
parachute retirements, promotion sideways out of the way and
other ingenious methods to get the educational institutions back
on track, to give increased service to the public and students.
Distance learning courses are no longer experimental, but a
growing segment of increasing student enrollment and applying
technology to new student markets in many colleges nationwide.
The list of such course offerings is rising exponentially.

One facet of distance learning, particularly in southern
California, New Mexico, Texas and South Florida is the
opportunity to provide courses to the Latin American market in
Spanish. The accreditation aspects of southern states Colleges
and Universities that are bi-lingual in Spanish and English,
solve a lot of problems with Latin American students attempting
to have their degrees and certifications accepted in different
parts of the American continent. By taking courses via distance
learning through institutions that serve the bi-lingual
community, they get also the benefits of recognized credentials.
A degree taken in Santiago, Chile via distance learning in
Spanish from MDCC or FIU in South Florida would entitle any
Chilean to be employable in Canada, or the USA, or other Latin
American country. Because MDCC or FIU has the accreditation recognized
throughout the continent.